This Was Halloween

I went a little Halloween-crazy this year. Make that a lot crazy. Like, I might as well have been hanging out with my blue security blanket in a sincere pumpkin patch waiting for a mystical vegetable to show up.

I completely blame the after-effects of wedding brain. During my year+ of wedding planning, I always had one craft project or another into which I could funnel an absurd level of time, energy, and money. I would have told you when the wedding was over that was something I wouldn’t miss. But like summer heat or being in school, wedding crafting is one of those things you’re delighted to be relieved of at first but miss terribly after a few months without it.

So I filled that void with an ambitious Halloween costume. The Evaline, the ridiculous Halloween party we go to every year, had a board game theme this year. So I attempted to make a dress that also functioned as a playable Scrabble board. Spoiler alert: Emphasis on ATTEMPTED. I totally failed.

I bought this Scrabble fabric online, carefully cutting out the bonus squares and using fusible web to create a Scrabble board pattern on a dress. Then I super glued clear sew-on snaps to the backs of a set of Scrabble tiles. The trouble started when I started to sew on those snaps, because it was a VERY slow-going process. So I told myself I’d only sew on a specific pattern of snaps for the front of the dress, so that I’d only have to sew all 225 squares on one side of the dress. But I was at my fastest sewing on one snap every five minutes, which would have taken about 18 hours of non-stop sewing to complete. Time I just didn’t have, because I was also helping with party set-up again this year.

Here, have a blurry cell phone photo!

So I started to super-glue the snaps onto the dress. At first, this seemed to be working great. Sure, I completely glued my fingers together multiple times. [Sidebar: this is the greatest super glue on the planet, and it is most easily removed from skin by using hand lotion with lanolin in it! You're welcome.] But then I was running short on time even with my new corner-cutting strategy. I started to get a little sloppy with the super glue. And the snaps would no longer snap.

So I had a good “I just wasted so many hours and dollars” cry, Collin tried his damnedest to fix it (he actually worked out a reasonable fix involving a power drill, but I was more than ready to throw in the towel). It helped that my other Halloween costume turned out better than I could have hoped:

Sexy George Washington was a big hit, and as an added bonus, it’s one of those rare “sexy” costumes that is warm. When it snowed Saturday morning, the mourning period for my Scrabble costume was cut dramatically short by the warm promise of a jacket and a wig.

And then there was a couple with a playable Scrabble costume at the Evaline (the dude was the board, the chick was the selection of tiles. They used velcro, and fake tiles. They’re smarter than me!) So I totally dodged the inferior-version-of-a-clever-costume bullet. It was a Halloween miracle!

Thank you! I didn’t “make” the costume so much as curate it. The jacket is from a men’s George Washington costume, which just happened to have a sewn-in vest that when worn behind the torso pretty much tailored the whole thing (well that and a few well-placed safety-pins, but getting the jacket to fit comfortably was easier than I could have ever hoped). I also ordered the cheapest powdered-esque wig available from that site. The bodice was from an old fairy costume I had in my closet. The leggings were the first gold lame leggings I found eligible for Amazon Prime shipping.

One of my friends dresses as some variant on Lincoln every year, and this year was “sexy schoolgirl Lincoln.” Collin asked me at some point if he could dress up as sexy Lincoln and I was like, “ABSOLUTELY NOT!” without explaining that Joe had already pissed all over it. He was bizarrely accepting.

I’m just sad that I didn’t recruit people to be Sexy Jefferson and Sexy Roosevelt so we could have Sexy Mount Rushmore.

I absolutely loved your costume, and applaud your ability to pull off gold lame’ leggings so well. I have learned from my profession that fabric is like paint… you shouldn’t make something shiny if it has a lot of imperfections.

Hi! I found this picture/your site when I was searching for “sexy george washington” costume ideas. My friends and I are doing sexy presidents this halloween. I couldn’t find any jackets to go with the costume but I saw you posted the link so thanks! It says on the website one size fits most, but if you had to guess what size would it be closer to? Just trying to get an idea about the size, and also the type of fabric (will I be sweating to death? haha).

Hi, I think your blog might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your website in Opera, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, very good blog!

Hi, I think your site might be having browser compatibility issues.
When I look at your blog in Chrome, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it
has some overlapping. I just wanted to give
you a quick heads up! Other then that, superb blog!